Yateley Sandhurst Social – Session Report

Just a quick blog post as a follow up from a Carp-Forums.com social I attended on the yateley lake back in March. Sorry it has been a bit of a while since the last post but I have been busy however now there should be a raft of posts on the way.

I had never fished Yateley Sandhurst so had no idea what to expect however confidence was high as I had been told that it responded well in the early part of the season. Maggot was the modus Operandi and so Ads kindly arranged the maggots for all of us, all many gallons of them.

As was normal on a social, swim selection was performed via draw,

And some people were happier with their swim than others,

I elected to fish away from the “Party Bank”and decided that “the Pipes” swim looked my best bet so when my name came out of the hat I was glad to be able to grab it straight away. The Bivvy was set up, the swim prepared and several pints of maggots were dropped on a likely looking 7ft depression about 50 yards to my right just past the roots of an old weed bed ( according to my map)

It was at this point that my bait boat ( only just back from the repairers) decided that going in circles with the lights flashing was its preferred mode of operation.. oh hum. That is why you see the spomb and marker rod out above.

To cut a long story short, there were not a lot of fish out with mine ( see later) the 4th biggest 🙂 There were 3 carp out and 1 pike – guess who caught the pike ? Congratulations to Ads who arranged the whole social who managed to catch not just 1 but 2 fish. The story of the 1st fish needs to be related so here goes: Ads, who being the organiser, had the party in his swim. He decided to pop out with another miscreant for some pizza as the pizza house was just round the corner. As there were 8-9 experienced anglers in his swim he asked one of the others to manage his rods and yes you guessed it his 1st carp came whilst he was picking up pizza for everyone else. Anyone else would have been a little annoyed by this but not Ads, the next night Ads had his second fish and this time he was there to land it 🙂

My biggest – well only – fish was a pike of 12lb odd which was hanging around the front of my swim and I decided had to be caught. As I has a lure in my bag I plopped it onto his nose and within the 1st few seconds he was mine.

As far as I am concerned it is a fish that was angled for and caught and so definitely counts, the fact that it was a carp session is besides the point.

I would like to continue regaling you with tales of other massive carp however it was not to be, Phil ( Landyman) had the largest at 35 but apart form the 2 that Ads caught it that was about it for the weekend. Sometimes carp fishing is like that sadly, however a superb time was had by all and it was really good to put some names to the faces